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Beware the ecotourist

By Anil Ananthaswamy

SOMETHING weird is happening in the wilderness. The animals are becoming restless. Polar bears and penguins, dolphins and dingoes, even birds in the rainforest are becoming stressed. They are losing weight, with some dying as a result. The cause is a pursuit intended to have the opposite effect&colon; ecotourism.

The massive growth of the ecotourist industry has biologists worried. Evidence is growing that many animals do not react well to tourists in their backyard. The immediate effects can be subtle – changes to an animals’ heart rate, physiology, stress hormone levels and social behaviour, for example – …